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Facebook App Center looks set to take on the App Store with paid apps

This app discovery tool has just gone into beta and it'll be coming to a mobile device near you very soon

10 May 2012/7:57BST

"I did not read anything on the Guardian today" – that's the kind of notification-weary status you might have seen since the roll-out of Facebook's apps. But for everyone who shuns the move, there's another Facebook user frantically pinning images on Pinterest or publishing all their SoundCloud habits to their news feed.

And Facebook's taking this Open Graph app business to another level this month with the announcement of the App Center, a place for you to discover apps you can overlay onto the social network with app detail pages for each one. We'll be able to access the App Center via the desktop, iOS and Android when it goes live in a couple of weeks and developers will have strict guidelines to work to.

Apps – like Draw Something and Spotify – will be pushed to the front page in no time as users will be encouraged to rate each offering, which must use the Facebook Login to be included.

Is it gearing up to be an App Store rival though? Well, the blogpost on the Facebook Developer Blog sneaks in a few details at the end on paid apps – specifically that up front payments will be part of the App Center, not just in-app purchases. So Apple and Google better watch this new development pretty closely.